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ERIS 



BOOKS BY 

Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff 



THE SONG OF YOUTH 

WOVEN OF DREAMS 

ATYS 

ALCESTIS 

ERIS 




From the Original Pastel by Paul Hellen 

Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff 



HI 



ERIS 



DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 



BY 



"Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff 




NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

1914 



COPYRIGHT, I914. BY MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

All Rt£hts Reserved 



K 



r 



r. •( 
•1 *> • ■ 



Jill -7 1914 



©CI.A376593 



a 



TO HENRI BERGSON 



*' La vie est un combat entre le spectre du 
passe et I'elan vers Tavenir." — Bergson, 

" The mind Is Its own place and In Itself 
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." 

— Milton, 

*' Make not thy thoughts thy prison." — Shakespeare. 

*' Where but to think Is to be full of sorrow." — Keats. 



CHARACTERS: 

Man 

Thought, A Demon 
The Past, A Spirit 
The Future, A Spirit 



Eris: A Dramatic Allegory 



Scene: A Wide Plain 



Man 




AM alone, yet nevermore alone ! 
For In the aching abyss of the air 
Tremble a thousand phantasms of the 
brain, 

A conjured mimicry of things unseen, 
A seething maelstrom of distorted shapes 
That smirk and gibe with tongues of bitter hate, 
Strange eyeless gnomes and painted fairies bright 
That wander 'mid the shadows; and black bats 
Having the forms of men. ... By night, by day 
I walk amidst this maddening multitude, 
I hearken to the chatter of strange voices, 
I watch strange antic loves that go unnamed 
On earth; and oft I feel the ghostly touch 
Of frenzied kisses that the world would scorn, — 
(The far forgotten world of things unreal!) 
I laugh with apish revels, harlot joys, 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

I take unto my bosom wandering ghouls 

That have lain dead and cankerous many years, 

And I caress weird dreams that mock my lips. . . 

At midnight when the moon is hanging low 
White lads come forth and bare their ivory limbs 
Romping like snow-deer 'neath the laurel boughs 
Singing wild wanton songs of vanished hours 
When Charmides was playing on his lute. . . . 
At dawnrise elfin creatures of the sky, — 
Pale dr}^ads from the star-paths, call to me, 
Weaving bright dewy garlands for my hair. 
And from far myrtle islands of my fancy 
They waft the scent of amaranth and musk. 
Winding my body with fantastic flowers 
White as the bosom of a Paphian dove I 

Sometimes the wind on fair Daedalian wings 
Brings me a vision on the married air. 
And as of old I tremble 'neath the touch 
Of damask lips and dark dishevelled tress,- 
And from the turgid heaven music pours, 
Torrential tunes that float upon the breeze, 
While in my lonely heart a lost grief swells 
Immortal as the black-browed Niobe, 
And from some perfumed Cytherean isle 
Love calls me with his piteous pale eyes. 

2 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

I am encompassed by a wilderness, 

A desert of illimitable dream, 

And my enfettered spirit sadly strays 

Within the rampart of tormenting thought. . . . 

[Enter Thought, 

Thought 

Could you then live without me? 

Man 

Ah, too well, 
Cruel tyrant, demon of my souFs unrest! 

Thought 

I am the spirit's agent, thus decreed 
To dwell imprisoned in the temporal shell, 
I am the force of an empyrean realm 
Consecrated to confines terrestrial. 

Man 

How admirably has Nemesis devised 

This alien sphere of earth to tenant you 

Unto the last commiserating hour 

When mortal shall be freed of your dominion! 

3 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Am I your slave condemned to endless weal? 
O, Sisyphean shade, for at your will 
I twinge with pain, or my poor soul commits 
A thousand follies In the name of joy, — 
While you observe me silently, O fiend, 
Your visage kindled by a Titan glee! 



Thought 

I am the Universe ! I am a part 

Of the great cosmic heart that gave me birth, 

'Midst the Innumerable harmonies 

Wrought by the birth-pangs of my mother, Chaos, 

The choral of a million sphered stars 

Quivered the sky, and from the cavernous springs 

The rainbow-skirted daylight trembled forth 

Illumining the muffled dark with light. 

And all the amber-fretted seas and heavens. 

The almond vales and wild enmarbied cliffs. 

The dusky groves and anthemed surfy shores 

From east to west encircling the wide globe 

Shone with the glory of my natal hour! 

Man 

You deem yourself a deity forsooth? 

4 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Thought 

Yea, I can swell Aeolian lyres with song, 

And vesture day with an Incarnate joy. 

My touch can turn the darkness into dawn 

Or waken Amphlon lutes to minstrelsy; 

The burgeoning fields shout forth a wondrous bloom, 

The sky peals thunder at my giant tread. 

Man 

Accursed shadow that withholds the sun! 

Accursed torture-chamber of the soul! 

You are the grave of the unburied dead. . . . 

Thought 

I hold the secrets of the Infinite, 
The alchemy of human suffering, 
And the Impalpable beauty of the stars. 

Man 

Source of the miseries of unhappy man! 
The sepulchre of hope. 

Thought 

Nay, the throne of joy! 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Man (aside^ supplicating) 

Ah, to have one brief hour of soothing ease 
Within a leafy glade where I could rest 
Unmindful of this monstrous weariness, 
Unmindful of this stress man calls the brain, 
Unmindful of the presence of this demon. 
. . . Only a little space to find sweet peace 
Crowned by a vaporous serenity 
Amid soft voices of the cooing birds, 
My brow soothed by the mossy forest's cheek, 
My weary soul bathed in oblivion ! 

Thought 

I am the brother of oblivion . . . 

Wrought of the Void, I hold the spell of sleep. 

Man 

I cry to my lost Love, deliver me ! 
And when I hear his wide wings In the sky 
I dream that peace emerges with the dawn, 
I dream that Love will yield nepenthine calm, 
And like a child I cower 'neath his touch 
When lo ! I find thought hidden In Love's breast, 
The canker in the petal of the rose! 

6 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Thought 

Love Is my child, my child of aureate dew 
Whom the mosses mothered and Apollo kissed, 
His coronal Is hawthorn and he culls 
The beauty of the constellated dome. 

Man 

I brave the fresh storm In Its furious blast, 

'Naked I leap from bough to rivulet 

Hastening through fields of marigold when dusk 

Is luminous with white tranquillity; 

I follow quiet birds unto their nests, 

I hear the sylvan voices of the night 

When plumed stars are quivering In the west; 

Darkling, I roam beside the glaucous sea 

Watching pled day unwind her auburn hair; 

I drink the rainbow-foam of pebbled seas, 

I bathe in Hesperus^ blazing glow, and romp 

With careless children seeking butterflies 

Blown like pink rose-buds 'gainst the turquoise sky; 

I wade In amber pools that woo the clouds 

And hear the nymphs of Amphitrite sing; 

I gather shells and kiss their tinted lips 

Seeking to drain the delved minstrelsy, 

I hunt for honey with the humming-bird 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

In scarlet-tasselled vines that creep the rocks; 
I climb the mountain's summ^it where the snow 
Purples the glacial crests like gemmed crowns. 
I watch the eagle in his splendid flight 
Envious of his iniinite disdain, 
Or follow some fallen star that smites the dark; 
And then I wander by dim sleeping lakes 
All scent and lily-blossom where the swans 
Prune their white wings in stately idleness 
And bright bees murmur on their amorous quest 
Beneath the heavy shadows of the trees. 

Weary, I seek the battled ways of men 
Mingling within the noise of multitudes 
Where sin and sorrow stalk uncomforted. 
I see the hea\^'-hearted human throng, 
I listen to their chatter of despair 
Goaded, as they, by idle dreams of gold, 
And pleasure that is false and pitiful . . . 

Harassed, I lind again the vernal lanes 

Far from the gilded city's dreary din, 

And when the dawn has s^^-ung the vaulted sky 

And through the glow of Lucifer, wheeled clouds 

Flutter like azure halcyons, and the w^oods 

Are tinkling with the Naiads' vibrant songs 

I seek the desolate grave-yards of the dead 

8 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Where grateful spirits slumber 'neath the sod, 

Unthinking In their calm Incom.parable ; 

I linger hoping to partake of peace, 

Feeling the silence greet me like a kiss, 

Where scent and blossom marry the sweet air 

And the globed dew Is like a rainbow wand 

Imparting some celestial harmony. 

Alas, I am denied the sleeper's peace, 

In every perfumed lair, in glade or grove. 

In flower-inwoven field or tawny mount 

I cannot free myself from you, O Thought — 

The viper lurking in the Auroral air! 

Thought 
Man wItTiout me Is but a puling clod. 

Alan 

Mortal divest of you remains sublime 
Clad in the primal beauty of the race, 
The savage splendour of the orient past. 
The god endowed with unalloyed sublime ! 

Thought 

There is no god but thought. The human mind 
Contains the spark of arch-divinity. 

9 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY. 

Man 

Knowledge is suffering; the cerebral realm 
Maddened with ceaseless image knows no peace 
Ah, only to the child the world is sweet 
When on the threshold of experience, 
Unmindful of the misery of life, 
Bathed in the glow of iridescent hope, 
Still purified in instinct and desire, 
Unclouded by the sullen mist of thought. 

Thought 
You cannot vanquish me while life endures. 

Man 

Even the heart's dream no longer is a dream 
When carrion doubt destroys its comeliness. 

Thought 

Then would you be released as madmen are. 
Cleft from the gyves of reason and cast out 
Adrift upon a sea of aimless shadow? 

Man 

Yea! sent adrift upon some azure wave 
To weave the gauzy fabric of my dream 

10 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

From rainbows or from painted butterflies, 
Or reach down In the myriad sea and find 
Some spangled fish to be my paramour I 
To swoon upon the silvery breath of dawn 
Caressed by roseate sunbeams from the sky 
My body wound In some white wreath of foam, 
Or pluck a radiant star-beam down to earth 
And tread its shimmering aisles in ecstasy! 

Thought 
You envy those that are bereft of me? 

Man 

They who think not have every hope of joy 
Environed by dull air and empty ease ! 

Thought 

I bring you beauty. I am beauty's womb, 

The source of all inebriating vision, 

I wave Apollo's wand that woos the soul 

With vistas of illimitable loveliness. 

Bright towers of chrysoprase and coral beds 

In fair Uranian realms. Would you renounce 

The hope of future things, and the sweet past? 

II 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Man 

I am so weary of dead livid hours, 
Dead joys that mock me with their phantom guile, 
Dead kisses like fresh wounds upon my lips, 
Dead passions in their haunting melancholy. 
I would be rid of every moment past. 
Of every corpse and carrion memory, 
^Sublime, unsuffering, without human taint 
Untrammelled by despair, hate, envy, fear. 
By fallacy, and cant, and caste and custom, 
As when in some anterior age I slept 
A babe and suckled in the kissing sun ! 
[The Past, a fantastic fairy, half witch, flits back 

and forth.^ 

Man 

Look, yonder flits your progeny ! It roams 

Like some false painted spectre o'er a tomb; 

Ah, long ago I buried it with tears. 

But lo, your venom power waked the dead! 

See how the sombre eyes cajole my gaze. 

And the stark frame in hideous mimicry 

Shudders its oldtime lure ! The cerecloth falls 

And once again I see the spectral shape 

Of vanished love, dust-shrouded yet still fair I 

Upon my maddened lips lost kisses rain 

12 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

And on my bosom swoons a girlish form, 
Fragrant with summer spice and wooing breath 
And locks dark clustered like an ebon cloud. 
Her mouth is like the breath of some fresh grave, 
Salt with the cankered mould of brackish earth . , 
(Love that is death, and death that is but love!) 

Thought 

To suffer is the destiny of man. 

As long as I live, so the past must live I 



Ma 



n 



Is there no spot on earth where I am free 
Of your cruel vigilance? 

Thought 

Perchance in sleep 
Death's nursling child. 

Man 

Nay, slumber does not ease, 
For dark is shot with dreams of other lives, 
And haunted with wild images terrible, 
The stalking spirits of the world of Void, 
The ghoulish phantoms of my nether brain! 

13 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Thought 
Only in Death is there consummate peace. 

Man 

Death holds aloof from me like some dread foe. 
[^The Future, a tinselled and bizarre fairy, flits hack 
and forth with pleading seductive smiles.'] 

Behold! another malison, the Future! 

Life is a futile war between the Past 

And the longed-for tomorrow. There is no peace 

Nor no today. The present is a dream. 

Thought 

Robbed of my domination man would own 
Only the glittering aura of an hour! 

Man 



[Exit. 



Ephemeral present, exquisite and fleet! 

The flash of a diaphanous butterfly. 

The aroma of some white-crowned hyacinth, 

The soft lips of a lover sealing mine, 

The myriad-tinted rainbow In its flight, — 

The sweet-sucked honey from a blooming flower, 

14 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

The dying beauty of a summer day, 

The last bird's note at nightfall through the dusk, 

The wavy glimmer of a field of wheat, 

The yellow feather of a new-blown moon ! 

The Past 
Would you renounce my glory evermore? 



{Sings. 



Would you forsake 
The joy I bring, 
No more partake 
Of phlltred spring? 

Man 

Go from me! I disdain your mock delight. 

Obsessed by demons of an eerie world 

My days and nights are shaken by your spell. 

The Past 

O, once I was a maiden beautiful 
With starry locks, a shy impassioned girl 
You took to be your bride long years ago. 
When you were young and amorous and glad. 
You loved each little curl that hung my brow 

15 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

And your fond hands knew rapturously by rote 
Each hidden beauty-nook that once was mine, 
And our blithe footsteps strayed in fairy lanes 
Through blossoming springs in scented rose-wreathed 
vales. {Sings, 

I was beautiful, fair. 

With stars in my hair, 

A silvery girl 

You took for your bride 

In amorous pride. 

You loved each curl 

That clustered my face. 

And your sweet embrace 

Found every hid nook 

Of my beauty's grace. 

We loved: and we took 

Paths amid fair lands 

Through the April weather 

In the wind together. 

Our rose-wreathed hands 

And our nimble feet 

Rapturous, fleet. 

Man 

Can the dead speak? Are you a lonely wraith? 
(Oh, memory that will never know a grave!) 

i6 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

The Past 

I am she you loved. Look on me, — my lips ache 

To rest on yours. Yea, I am she you lost 

So perilously fair, for whom you gave 

All human things that you might touch my mouth. 

My kiss was heaven and doom, and our desire 

Once kindled the gray night with scarlet flame. 

\_Sings. 

I am she, I am she 

Whom you loved! 

I cry from Eternity, 

I call you to me. 

I am she 

Whom you loved, 

Perilously fair. 

With stars in my hair . . . 

Death ne'er could conspire 

To thwart love's desire; 

I am radiant yet, 

You could never forget 

In the shroud of the tomb 

Where the wild flowers bloom. 



Ma 



n 



I feel like one who sees the whirling world 
Smitten with sudden fire. Within my heart 

17 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

The quickened spring leaps In torrential bloom 
As when my love lay panting in my arms 
Submissive like an ebon-tressed child. 

The Past 

Beneath the cypress shades in Italy, 
Fainting with kisses, long entwined we lay, 
The silver lake a mirror for our love. 
The little birds that twittered in the pools 
Chanting majestic chorals for our joy. 
The crystal air was like a marriage chime, 
The sky was shining with a thousand gems. 
You were so white and trembling on the grass ! 

[Sings. 

The radiant day 

In vanished May 

In the cypress shade 

Where entwined we lay. 

The pale lake made 

A mirror for your body cool; 

Nearby gold birds were bathing in 

a pool. 
The crystal air 

Was like a kiss, and fainting thus 
The calm skies envied us. 
You were so white and fair ! 

i8 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Man 

I shall expire remembering; the dream 

Is but a fugitive breath upon the breeze. 

. . . Tell me, fair demon, are you woman's beauty 

Or the incarnate spirit of all pain? 

The Past 

I am Love; the fusion of two entitles, 
The blind goal of man's unenlightened ways, 
His pitfall and his beautiful sad hope. 
His solace and his Incommensurate doom, 
Twin-brother of white death, I waft the dawn 
And fair ambrosial fancies for his soul. 
I am the voice of music and of stars, 
I am the gate of Immortality, 
I am the one wild hour of perfectness! 



[Sings. 



I am Love, — the shining goal 
Of every human soul. 
The solace and the doom. 
The glory and the gloom, 
Death's fatal fair caress, 
I am the song of sun and stars, 
The portal that unbars 
A moment's perfectness! 

19 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Man 

Cease, cease ! what woman are you In disguise 

What fairness consummate, Incarnadine? 

Are you Pandora cast forth from the sky 

Curst with the magic evil of her wiles? 

Or are you radiant Helen come again 

To wreck a thousand hearths with passion's flame, 

Or are you Cleopatra's serpent kiss 

That felled a kingdom? Are you Phryne white 

Whose glorious nakedness was Hellas' pride? 

Are you Antigone who roamed the earth 

Crowned In a watery diadem of tears, 

Or yet Aspasia, wisdom's paramour, 

Or Llllth, the first sin-tainted mate of man, 

Or Phaedra whose wild ardour was despair; 

Are you Yseulte whose dream-enfiltered love 

Allured her to immltlglble doom. 

Or Balkis, Sheba's queen the sorceress 

Whose pompous armies stirred the sullen east? > 

Or are you Deborah, of Israel's power. 

Or winged Apollo's unrequited love 

Cassandra, whose fair lips rewarded Troy, 

Or are you she whom Matho died to win 

Salammbo, dusky maiden of the South? 

O, are you lovely Sappho, lyric-crowned, 

She whom Favonius envied of her song 

20 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

When Lesbian vales were glimmering with girls 

And many voiced lyres of minstrelsy. 

Or are you Izeyl whom great Buddha sought 

Within the Himalayan-shadowed plains, 

Or yet Francesca, tawny tressed one 

Slain In the shameful rapture of her love, 

Or Mary the Immaculate bride of heaven, 

Or fair Zenobia, or Beatrice 

The fleshless dream of singing centuries! 

The Past 

I am all women; yet I am but one. 

[Sings, 
I am all women, 
The breath of an eternal May, 
I am she you loved 
And cast away! 

Man 

O, you are Proserpine whose kiss was doom ! 
You are the ghost that stalks the moon's white orb, 
Driving men mad with beauty terrible. 
I would smite love as some unholy thing ! 

The Past 
You cannot kill what once you loved. It crawls 
With the red worms within the sepulchre ! 

[Sings. 

21 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

O Love's fair bloom 

Fades not within the tomb. 

As deathless as some re-Incarnate 

dove 
Is love ! 

Man 

An end there must be to my suffering! 

[ The spirit of the Future flits hack and forth.^ 

The Future 

I am the oracle of hope; my song 
Awakes new life upon the sodden earth, 
And when I spread my ralnbow-tlnted wings 
The frosted streams leap blithely and the birds 
Break Into sudden chanting: man's dull heart 
Thrills at my name : I am his mortal quest. 

[Sings. 

I am the hope of the sad. 

My song makes all the weary glad. 

When I spread my wings 

The snow-frosted springs 

Burst from the earth, 

Bright summer sings 

And beauty has birth, 

22 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Man's heart Is aflame 
At the sound of my name. 
Come to my breast, 
I am your quest ! 

Man 

In youth you were my horizon of joy, 

You lured me with your painted wings of fire, 

I worshipped you, and sought your Illusive lore 

As a lover dreams of the unknown caress. 

But you were cruel and nurtured me on guile . . . 

Go from me! You can grant me no new grace 

I have not had, grown weary of, and lost I 

The Future 

New love I promise to your lonely heart 
And halcyon dreams and fair felicitous hours, > 
Worship again with youth's credulity 
And I shall bless you with a soothing hope. 



I promise new love 
And the joy thereof. 
Dreams for your heart; 
O, quaff my nectar sweet, 
Come kneel beneath my feet 
And your woe will depart I 

23 



[Sings, 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Man 
Your promises are but delusion's snare ! 

Future 

I am the vestal luminance of life, 

I tend the heart-sick with a brimming hope. 

[Sings. 

I am the lustral glow 
That lights the earth's sad face, 
Man is glad at my embrace, 
He must perish if I go ! 

Man 

You are the undawned dream that dies still-born, 
Begotten in the sterile womb of faith. 

Future 

I bid you laugh and live and love anew, 
I offer compensation for the past 
And when my song is heard upon the earth 
The world grows golden with renascent light. 

[Sings. 

Come unto me and smile, 
Forego the sorry past awhile; 

24 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

And hear the sylvan meadow as It 

sings 
Awakened by the glimmer of my 

wings ! 

Man 

Taunt me no more with your tormenting wiles ! 

\^Exit Future. 

I cannot longer bear this martyrdom, 
This gloom bedlmming the fair face of earth, 
This demon In whose grasp I writhe and weep 
This pageant of despair, — this strumpet Thought! 

[Enter Thought, 

Thought 
What will you do to free yourself of me? 

Man 

I would Caduceus' opiate-rod were mine 

The serpent-twined amulet of ease! 

I shall away from this enhaunted spot. 

Quitting my natal clime for other lands. 

Seeking In some Invisible far realm 

A respite sweet, wandering where men are not, 

Within the perfumed valleys of the east . . . 

25 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Perhaps some crystal morning I shall wake 
And find my spirit chastened of its curse, 
Crowned in renascent splendour like a flower 
May-freshened in some scintillating vale, 
And clarified by space like a bright comet 
Sundered of time and all locality. 

Thought 

Your quest Is futile; — but essay, begone- 

The trackless sands hold promise of deep peace. 

Man 

Farewell! farewell! yon wind shall be my guide 
And I shall soar dew-gemmed on the dawn 
Wreathed in the raiment of a snowy cloud 
Seeking some freedom from my soul's dark curse. 



26 



Scene II : A Larissan Vale (Greece) 




Man 

HAT spell pursues my soul that I should 
find 
No peace in passage through this em- 
battled world? 
I traversed seas, I hid beneath the earth, 
I gazed upon the faces of the stars 
And wandered In still vales of almond bloom; 
I climbed enmarbled cliffs to glimmering caves 
And watched the auburn day illume the sky, 
I scaled blue cragginess on misty mounts 
And waded In the muffled dark of clouds, 
I sought the tawny splendour of old fanes 
Hidden In lampless shadows, and I watched 
The dusk grow crimson on the architraves, 
I fed my weary eyes on ancient crypt 
And rose-ensanguined ivory and gem; 
I went by stealth across the Nubian sands 
To gaze upon the supine majesty 
Of Rameses within his earthen tomb! 
I strayed Thessalian meadows where the lark 

27 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY. 

Wooed the pale lips of lonely Irises, 
And Hermes In his august splendour, smiled. 
I roamed with jaguars in the jungled night 
And slept on weedy marshes with my bow 
Where Marsyas' music murmured In the glade; 
I sought strange grottoes in a wooded cleft 
And bathed In murky streamlets cavernous 
Beneath the unsunned spaces of the earth; 
I viewed the tinted Kremlin of the North 
Crossing Siberia's wilderness of plain; 
I followed rapid rivers In their course 
Wading In brackish forests where the owl 
Hooted In dismal solitude: I scaled 
Bright crimson rills In flowering Tripoli; 
And knelt In awe before the Taj Mahal 
On shoals of seas sequestered In the east. 
I heard strange desert melodies and laughed 
With painted harlots In the candlelight, 
I saw weird Bedouin dances 'neath the moon 
And woman's nakedness became a curse. 

I stood by blazing craters, and the night 

Grew blood-red with majestic Etna's flame, 

I mused by sapphlrine bay, and watched the rose 

Spangling the hillside with Its lambent flame 

Within cerulean Islands In the sea. 

I heard the tongues of seers and savages 

28 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Chanting their hymns of wisdom and of lust; 
I climbed the crumbling castles of the Rhine, 
Stepping from crag to crag on dizzy height 
Where birds made fairy anthems and the air 
Was shot with sunbeams from a heavenly bow. 

In Lombardy I followed blue canals 

And hunted golden willow-buds in May, 

I knelt beside the tomb of Juliet 

Mingling my tears with aeoned anguish past, 

I roamed where emperor and poet dreamed 

In Veroneslan sun . . . The watery vale 

Of Vaucluse held me spellbound with its lore, 

And ghostly Laura touched me by the hand. . . . 

In Venice I spread sail with Capulet 

And plied an oar across the green lagoons 

The soft air vibrant with the minstrels' song; 

I dreamed in Pisa's woodland and the gulf 

Of Lerici, where once again I heard 

The lyric echo of pure Shelley's voice. 

On Passtum's glory and on Dougga's mount 

I studied metope and fluted frieze 

Hearing the voice of Carthaginian kings 

Watching their phantom barks come up the bay. 

In Syracusan caves I roused the cries 

Of DIonysius' Greeks engulfed In rock, 

29 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

And Czesar's shadow led me through old Rome. 
I followed Hadrian's footprints to El-Djem 
Where gazing on the prairie coliseum 
My soul stood rapt in beauty's silent awe. 

In Lesbian valleys, myrtle-grown and sweet 

I strayed to the old tunes of Mytilene 

Where white Gyrinna played her dolorous lyre; 

I saw again the fairness of young girls 

Full bosomed and defiant as they passed 

Sun-lit with amorous longing on their lips, 

And lads who walked with shuddering hips that 

touched, 
iXwin-lilies on a swaying stalk of dream! 

I paced Girgenti's ruins and a throng 
Of ancient bards held converse with my soul; 
I heard the pastoral chants of Theocritus, 
And Plato's wisdom echoed through the walls, 
While weeping for lost beauty, Phaon pale 
Wandered in shadowy silence on the hill. 

Haunted by visions old, at length I sought 
The desert's glory of infinitude 
Hoping to find in Allah's sea of sand 
Serenity at last, — beneath the skies 

30 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Of orient sapphire, tended by soft winds, 
'Tis said man is no longer slave of Thought 
But soars in spirit-peace like the wide sun 
That sprinkles all the heavens with its jewels. 
Breeze-borne and bodiless I yearned to be 
Absolved of every mortal human woe 
And pinnacled in the unpavilioned dome 
Wooed by ineffable, Elysian calm . . . 
Alas! alas! my quest has brought no peace, 
I have not found in all my wanderings 
An instant's freedom from the demon Thought, 
The ravenous monster, greedy of its prey. 
The deathless vampire sealed upon my soul. 

Reason is false ! give back the infinite vision 
When man was wooed by concerts of the stars ! 
Life is an empty search for perfectness, 
And instinct, once sublime, is steeped in shame! 
The Universe is a prism and each chant 
Of shower or grain of dust, or eager stream, 
Each dewdrop trembling on a flower's lip. 
Each sable-breasted banner of the night. 
Each moon, each planet in the limpid vault. 
Each inarticulate harbinger of Spring, 
Each chiming wind, illusive eye of dawn. 
Each aureole of sunlight in the blue, 
Each bud dilating and each tranced cloud 

31 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Is but reflection of Infinitude, 

The singing voice of an eternal beauty. 

And, Thought, are you the attenuated spark 
That in a primal state of perfectness 
Once lit with magic sense the soul of man, 
The breath of ageless Immortality, 
The messenger of an anterior life, 
The conquering silence of eternity 
Corrupted by the pestilential earth 
Whose doom is degradation and despair? 
And are you given your terrestrial guise 
To haunt man with the sin of other lives. 
Your tyranny the penance of old wrong, — 
Each aeon but a conquest of the spirit 
Veering toward Its triumphal harmony. 

O Thought, must we be comrades to the end, 
Till some gigantic flood shall sweep us far 
Amid the demolished debris of mankind 
Annihilated by the Ultimate Void? 

Courage, my soul ... I must not yield my quest. 
Undaunted I shall seek unto the last 
. . . Onward, forever onward I shall fare 
From these still vales to some transcendent slope 
Beyond all mortal bourne . . . Perhaps aloft 
Bathed in primeval space, I shall be free 1 

32 - 




Scene III : Mount Parnassus. 

Man 

iT last I find the summit of the world! 

Where sky and earth seem melting In 
caress, 

Where no birds sing, and the clear 
hyaline 
Hangs like a mirrored crystal o'er my head. 
Here nothing lives, no mortal foot has trod 
These unfrequented crags. The fields are gone 
And the last lyric of the nightingale 
I left late lingering on the violet air. 
There Is no sound. The mighty throne of Zeus 
Hides like a cloud-veiled mist within the heavens; 
I am so near divinity it seems 
That I could tread the pathway of the stars; 
Sweet martial music radiates the breeze 
And harp tunes never heard by man before, — 
Wild minstrelsy aerial, and notes 
Of zephyrine softness swimming from the blue. 
The summit of the world! ... the dazzling sphere 
Beyond the bourne of mortal visitation; 

33 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

This august wilderness of solitude 
Is beauty's rapt empyrean unalloyed 
Where the pure spirit tastes of errant joy 
Poised on the sunny auras of the sky. 

How beautiful is all this azure scene! 
Blent blue and amber mist upon the w^ave 
Where rise the snow-peaks of the Sporades 
Wreathed in a swooning cloud of amethyst. 
Below the Delphian valleys lean away 
Where once Apollo slew the Pythian dragon ; 
Like pale wraiths trembling in an emerald haze 
The islands of the Archipelago, 
And far the outline of Mount Athos peers; 
Ossa and Pelion rise beneath the shade 
Of grim Olympus, towering in the mist, — 
And southward stretch the golden Phokian plains 
Abrim with lakes that glitter serpentine; 
Slumbering beyond the radiant Attic fields 
The snowy flanks of Helikon appear, 
And at the sea's edge, dim Arcadia, 
Kellene and fair Chalmos lie asleep 
Gilded by dying sun-glow. The white crown 
Of Amphossa beneath the Kronan hill, — 
And then, — the open sea's infinitude — 
The shimmer and the promise of the wave 
Inviolate and merciless as doom . . . 

34 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

The pigmy world lies like a phantom vale, 

Ye crags of giant mountains, ye are mine ! 

Ye mists innumerable encompassing me, 

Ye avalanches crashing 'neath my feet, 

Ye glacial pits that shine like molten moons, 

Ye jewelled valleys shimmering far below, 

Ye sulphurous volcanoes, ye wild clouds 

That race like silver steeds across the sky. 

Ye rushing streams and blasted shrubs, ye rivers 

And plumed ranges of unending peaks. 

Ye forests of primeval oak and pine. 

Ye lakes, and whirling planets of the dome, 

Here I am free at last to own my soul ! 

\_Enter Thought. 

Thought 

You frolic like a madman In the wind. 
Your antic mirth has shaken all the sky. 

Man 

What wraith is this that greets my startled 
sight? . . . 

Thought 

No apparition but reality. 

35 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Man 

I faint ... I tremble . . . am I crazed at last, 
And is this ghost a mirage of the mind? 

Thought 
Come nearer. I am animate and warm. 

Man 

It was but a dream ... a joy ephemeral, 
A fairy vision hovering In my brain. . . . 

Thought 

You rave as one beset with visions wild, 
Your countenance Is strange and In your eyes 
Delirium Is brooding . . . 

Man 

O, kind Death, 
Befriend me in this ultimate hour of need! 

Thought 

You sought to rend the veil, — to transcend self, 
But it was futile, you are firmly bound 

36 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

To me forever In the coil of pain 

The pain begotten of the woman's womb, 

The immemorial tragedy of birth. 

Man (aside) 

Envelope me within the cosmic heart 
Freed of my separate hideous entity, 
Blown with the winged dust from whence I came ! 

Thought 

You suffer as all men. A similar curse 
Scourges each separate individual soul, 
The burden of the bloom of deathless light. 
The ageless ache of human consciousness. . . . 

Alan 

I have been ever lonely among men, 

My passions were not theirs; my spirit trod 

An alien path of exile miserable, 

I was a stranger wandering on earth, 

I could not love as others love. I sought 

Some strange impossible loveliness unknown. 

The moon-kiss of the dryad in the stream. 

Some perfectness beyond all mortal bourne. 

37 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Thought 

It was the spirit seeking liberty 
Rebellious In Its gyve of mortal flesh. 

Man 
No longer can I bear this stress of sorrow . . . 

Thought {approaching cliff's edge) 

Gaze down upon yon cliff where the colled mists 
Like writhing serpents hiss in white embrace, 
The earth Is hid, and the huge ebon crags 
Close in about us with their giant clasp. 

Man 

This deep abyss is seething with wild things, 
Strange birds and reptiles and enhungered beasts 
That claw each other with the will to live, 
Who knows but that they suffer even as I . . . 

Thought 
The cavern echoes with their mating cries! 

Man 

The symbol of immortal misery. 

38 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Thought 

Yon sorry pit Is life. ... It calls to you 

To join the maelstrom of Its anguished throng, 

Its pestilential brothel of despair! 

Man 

And yet above the placid dome of heaven 
Dissolves In azure beams, while In the east 
The quiet air is jewelled like a crown, 
And the young wind Is like a soft caress. . , . 

Thought 

We are alone beneath the face of God, 
And silence beckons with Its shadowy wings. 

Man 
How beautiful, how calm Is yonder sky! 

Thought 

Come nearer to this rugged precipice. 

. . . Hark how a loose stone echoes like a sob 

In its mad riot down the mountain-side ! 

Man 

Afar I see the hawthorn boughs in bud 
Beckoning me like a shining bower of peace . . . 

39 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Thought 

Do you hear the rushing of the torrent streams 
Crumbling the earth with crashing thunder-moan? 

Man (fainting) 

A dizziness ... a gentle music lulls 
My senses, and my spirit Is upborne 
On opalescent images of dream. 

Thought 

Even wilder melodies are in the air, 

The roar of fathomless charnels dim and dark. 

Man (wearily) 

master, let me rest my head awhile 

My weary aching brow upon your breast. 

... A feebleness o'ercomes me . . . and a cloud 

Of blinding dust reels In my throbbing eyes. 

1 see flower-checkered fields of asphodel 
And infinite mild meadowlands of sleep. 

Thought 

The Cyclopean thunder moans aloud. 

40 



ERIS: A DRAMATIC ALLEGORY 

Man {more wearily) 

I seem to see the giddy planets reel, 

If this is death it is too beautiful 1- 

Can it be the end — ? No! no! to live, to live! 

To conquer, not to die — 

[Grapples with Thought. 
Demon, let me live! 

Thought 

Nay, peace has come at last, O, vanquished mortal! 
How pitiful this unquenched will to live. 
Through me your spark of being came to birth. 
Through me it perishes like a blown leaf 
Tottering against the crimson of the sky. 

[^They struggle together. 

Man 

I sink ... I gasp . . . the dizzy earth recedes! 

[Plunges over cliff. 

Thought (assuming a sudden intenser magnitude 
rises out of the dust of Man.) 

At last to conquer after seons of strife — 
The reeling stars man's silent sepulchre. 

41 



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